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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481165">The Perfect Shot</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marivan/pseuds/Marivan'>Marivan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Powers, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Sniper!Nicky, photographer!Joe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:13:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,532</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marivan/pseuds/Marivan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe is a photojournalist on assignment in the tiny, coastal nation of Illyria, when he meets a handsome stranger in a bar. There is a football match on the TV. There is witty repartee about making the perfect shot.</p><p>When Joe returns from the bathroom, the man is gone: a missed connection or something more?</p><p> </p><p>  <i>(It's a Joe/Nicky fic, so of course it's something more.)</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>289</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Perfect Shot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>NOTE: the plot, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. </p><p>In other words, the international politics in this fic are intentionally *hand wave-y* and I stole a fake country from Shakespeare for the setting for a reason.</p><p>Lastly, thanks to the great folks on the Disaster Immortals Discord server for the prompt and inspiration.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Leaders from Italy, Greece, and several other European nations gather in the small, coastal nation of Illyria tomorrow for a summit. As global temperatures and sea levels rise and their home countries become uninhabitable, refugees from North Africa continue to cross the Mediteranean searching for higher ground and new lives. Unlike many of the leaders joining him, Illyria’s President of almost 20 years, Ferdinand Orsino, has been actively welcoming refugees to his nation’s shores. </em>
</p><p>“Any chance we could put a game on instead of… this?” Joe gestured to the TV over the bar, as he settled onto a stool.</p><p>The barkeep shrugged and punched a couple of buttons on the remote. Joe sighed, ordered a beer. He liked being on assignment, but travel days always took it out of him, and he just <em>couldn’t</em> with the world at the moment.</p><p>“Not much for politics?”</p><p>Joe turned to the man sitting to his right, the one who’d just spoken. He wore a plain black hoodie despite the afternoon heat and meager air conditioning, which struck Joe as odd, sure, but it was the man’s nose that really caught his attention. It was large and perfectly sloped and brought an air of elegance and distinction to the man’s face.</p><p>“Not when I’m off the clock.”</p><p>“You in town for the event tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yeah. You?”</p><p>“Yes. Should be interesting.”</p><p>“Depends on what you mean by interesting, but, sure.”</p><p>The man hummed in response. Both turned back to their beers and the football match on the TV.</p><p>Joe couldn’t have told you who was playing, local teams from the Balkans, it seemed, but the universal rules of watching football meant that when someone, anyone got close to a goal, some kind of reaction was called for. So when a player in red launched the ball toward the net, both Joe and the man next to him inhaled sharply.</p><p>It hit the crossbar, bounced back into play. With a well timed leap, another player in red headed the ball into the back of the goal.</p><p>“Bad shot,” the man next to him muttered.</p><p>Joe turned to him. “What do you mean? They scored the goal!”</p><p>“They got lucky.”</p><p>“They don’t score the game based on intentions, you know.”</p><p>“Much better to get it right the first time.”</p><p>“Look, in my field, it doesn’t matter how many photos are on your memory card, so long as you get one that you need. Same thing applies here.”</p><p>The man turned towards him. Joe noticed the mole on the man’s right cheek. “You’re a photographer?”</p><p>“Photojournalist.”</p><p>“Do you always get the perfect shot?”</p><p>Joe thought that the corners of the man’s mouth might be tipped up in a slight smile. Was he <em>flirting</em> with him?</p><p>“Well, generally that’s what I get paid for, so yes.”</p><p>The man chucked, deep in the back of his throat. “As do I.”</p><p>“Really? Who do you work for?”</p><p>“I’m freelance these days.” The man’s eyes lingered on Joe. Joe held them for a moment and smiled then ducked his head away shyly.</p><p>They went on like that. Watching the game. Chatting in fits and bursts. Stealing glances at each other. There was something about this man Joe found captivating, even if, or maybe because, he was relatively close-lipped.</p><p>Joe almost considered asking the man back to his hotel; they were both visitors here, after all. But then Joe remembered that this man was a colleague, that he was on assignment too, and the whole thing felt just a tad too unprofessional for Joe’s taste. Who knows? Maybe they’d run into each other again.</p><p>He finished his beer and ran to the restroom. When he returned, the other man was gone. Joe picked up his leather jacket from the hook underneath the bar, slung it over his arm, and left.</p><p>---<br/>
Unlike in the bar, the air conditioning in the hotel was on at full tilt. Joe shivered when he entered the lobby and he slid his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, his hands into the pockets. Much better.</p><p>While waiting for the elevator, he noticed a piece of paper in his pocket. A napkin from the bar, carefully folded. Joe spread it out between his fingers and read the message scrawled inside.</p><p>
  <em>For the perfect shot:<br/>
At the SE corner of the waterfront plaza face W, tomorrow AM.<br/>
You’ll know when I’ve made mine. </em>
</p><p>---<br/>
Joe slept restlessly that night, debating whether to take the man’s advice. It wouldn’t have been his initial thought about how to approach the event, but it wasn’t an unreasonable position to take. The morning light would be at his back, which was generally good.</p><p>But that last line -- <em>You’ll know when I’ve made mine</em> -- Joe puzzled over. If the man was a photographer as he claimed, Joe couldn’t, shouldn’t, know if he’d gotten the shot till much, much later.</p><p>In the end, he went for it. And, because most of the press corps was down in front of the stage set up for the event, Joe’s vantage point perpendicular to them meant that, when the bullet hit President Ferdinand Orsino in the forehead, Joe’s shot was the one on the front pages of newspapers across the world the next day.</p><p>---<br/>
<b>Three years later</b></p><p>Joe had never felt comfortable in a tuxedo -- a big part of his job was seeming unassuming -- but tonight he is one of the honorees and that means dressing the part. When the Met, the big one in New York, calls and asks to include one of your photographs in an upcoming exhibit, you say yes.</p><p>So here Joe is, standing in the entrance hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for the opening of “A Changing World: Contemporary Photography and Photojournalism.” He’s got a glass of champagne in one hand and the fingers of his other are drumming against his leg, itching for the comfort of being behind his camera. He decides to make a circuit of the room, see if he knows anybody else here, when a man brushes past him. Joe’s annoyance at being jostled is quelled by the realization that there’s now something in his free hand. A small bit of cardstock, with a handwritten message.</p><p>
  <em>Looks like we both got our shots.<br/>
Meet me on the roof in 10 minutes.<br/>
Door code NE stair: 1069</em>
</p><p>---<br/>
Joe emerges onto the roof ten minutes later, as instructed, and his eyes immediately catch on the broad shoulders and perfectly tailored tuxedo jacket of the man standing a few paces away.</p><p>The hinges creak as Joe closes the hatch behind him and the man turns to face him. That nose. That mole. Something burns hot and fast in Joe’s gut.</p><p>“You.” It’s all his brain can manage.</p><p>The man walks towards him. The lights of the city sparkle in his eyes.</p><p>Joe’s mouth, seemingly separate from his mind, continues, “I- I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent thinking about- about all of it.”</p><p>“Me too.” The man’s voice is low, gentle, barely heated.</p><p>The assassination of President Ferdinand Orsino had rocked the world. Like all powerful men, Orsino had secrets. Orsino’s, the world came to learn, were more despicable than most.</p><p>Joe knows exactly who this man before him is and what he has done. It is information he does not take lightly.</p><p>But right now he is standing on the roof of the Met and a beautiful man he’s been smitten with for years is staring at him with his beautiful eyes and elegant nose and that ever-so-slight smile on his lips.</p><p>Joe breathes. “Can I kiss you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Their lips meet and the man’s hands settle at Joe’s waist and Joe runs his hands through the hair at the nape of the man’s neck and everything is beautiful and good and right with the world.</p><p>After many moments lost in the feel of this man against him, Joe pulls back. Their foreheads rest together.</p><p>“I don’t even know your name.”</p><p>“Nicky.”</p><p>“Joe.”</p><p>“It’s a pleasure, Joe.”</p><p>“I agree, Nicky, very much.”</p><p>They press together again, lips, tongues, bodies. The wind picks up and Joe’s fingers grow cold, but all that matters is the heat he feels from Nicky and the passion he can give him in return.</p><p>An alarm chirps softly and Nicky pulls back and glances at his watch.</p><p>“5 minutes till the guard rounds,” he says. “Just enough time to make it back to the party without getting caught.”</p><p>Nicky grabs Joe’s hand and drags him back toward the roof hatch. They race down the stairs, still hand in hand, and Joe is breathless and giddy by the time they reach the bottom, several floors below.</p><p>They will have to talk about those days in Illyria three years ago. About the ramifications of both of their actions. About what it means for them, and for their future. Right now, though, the present is enough.</p><p>Just before pushing open the last door to re-join the party, Nicky pauses and turns to face Joe. He brings a hand up to the side of Joe’s face, kisses him lightly.</p><p>Nicky breathes into his ear. “How’s this for shooting my shot?”</p><p>“Perfect.”</p>
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